Computational Complexity and other fun stuff in math and computer science from Lance Fortnow and Bill Gasarch

Friday, November 06, 2009

Button Button

Here is the offer: If you press the button you will receive $200,000. The caveat: Someone you don't know will die.

I was born during run of the original Twilight Zone but growing up watched them over and over again in reruns. People dealing with some small change in reality often with a clever twist in the ending. But they made you think.

CBS had a remake of the Twilight Zone series in the mid-80's. But nearly all the episodes were quite bland and highly predictable stories. But one episode in that new series, "Button Button", which made that offer above, caught be by surprise and worthy of being in the same caliber of the best of the original series. I won't spoil anything else about the episode.

A new movie The Box, a remake of Button, Button that opens today. I thank the commercials for The Box for reminding me of that sole great Twilight Zone episode of the 80's. Can a full length movie do justice to that short and powerful episode, even with the writer and director of Donnie Darko? I doubt it so skip the movie and rent the the original (disk 5) instead.

I remember the episode from the 80's Twilight Zone as well. Definitely one of my favs. The episode was based on a short story written by Richard Matheson, the same guy who wrote I Am Legend.

I Am Legend was recently made into a movie starring Will Smith. The original novella by Matheson was better than the movie, although the movie was still pretty well done, IMHO. If you look at Matheson's IMDB page, you'll see a few other Matheson stories that have been previously made into movies, or are in the process of being made.

The episode is available on YouTube: Part1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6mUElrvpB0Part2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVZW684Qc

The idea is pretty damn good. It's the sheer open-endedness what makes you thinking... I think the recent movie is by far more predictable... The acting though is horrendous. Both lead male and female characters are grossly overacting their parts. Or, maybe, it was just how you were supposed to act in the 80s?